Rose Byrne Replacing Greta Gerwig In The Place Beyond The Pines

A busy promotion schedule reportedly is preventing Greta Gerwig from starring alongside Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper in Derek Cianfrance's crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines, but Cianfrance’s loss appears to be Rose Byrne’s gain.

The Bridesmaids and X-Men: First Class beauty, who currently stars with Glenn Close on the legal drama Damages, will join the ensemble, which has been shooting for two weeks, Vulture reports. Byrne will play the wife of Cooper’s character, a police officer turned politician who mixes it up with a motorcycle-riding bank robber (played by a bleach-blond Gosling).

Eva Mendes and Ray Liotta also have roles in the film, which reunites Cianfrance and Gosling for the first time since Blue Valentine, their gut-wrenching portrait of a broken marriage. The filmmaker told us last year that he’s anxious to use this film, which has been brewing for years, as a means to show violence in a truly horrific and realistic fashion. “There’s sexuality in Pines too, and violence. The violence is going to hurt. It’s not easy violence; it’s not violence that’s taken lightly. It’s violence that’s violent," he said.

Based on the near-documentary-level depiction of a crumbling relationship Cianfrance achieved in Valentine, it’s easy to imagine him heading down similarly riveting avenues here. The good news is that Byrne should be up to the task of replacing Gerwig, both of whom are blessed with beauty and range. Byrne has had a great year, once you add her stellar turn in the terrifying Insidious to the duo of X-Men and Bridesmaids. Cianfrance’s follow up to Blue Valentine always was going to be a title we paid close attention to, but now that his cast is locked in place, we’re confident he’s inching toward something special.